Sunday, June 30, 2013

At the end of a cattle drive, the livestock have to be sold off to those who want them. The cattle are then taken to slaughterhouses, where they can be used for food, hides, and other such things. However, the ranchers who brought the cattle to the stockyard have to determine the price of the cattle before that process takes place. Therefore, they need a way to decide how much each animal is worth without looking at exactly how much product can be sold at the end of the line - at meat markets, for example. The way that they do this is by weighing the cattle. They use the livestock scales at FloorScalesDirect.com, and the cattle are brought onto the scales one at a time.

Before this starts, they are examined and a price is determined per pound. Each animal is then weighed and sold for the total price that is based on its overall weight. One interesting thing is that the price per pound can move a fair amount from week to week, just like the stock market. It is driven by a number of different factors, the simplest of which is the supply of cattle. If there are many cows available and the demand is easily being met, the price per pound will fall. If the supply is running low and the demand is very high, the price will rise again. Ranchers always try to get their cattle to the stockyards when the prices are high, increasing their profits.